Pike Research’s John Gartner forecasts that global sales of hybrid and electric cars will grow from 995,000 in 2011 to 2,870,000 in 2017. Half the hybrid cars and all of the EVs will use lithium battery packs by 2017. In fact, the latest hybrid cars from Ford, Buick, Honda, Hyundai and Kai use lithium batteries not nickel-metal hydride (NiMH). In six years, cars with advanced batteries will triple and lithium automotive battery packs will grow over 100 fold. The forecast is only for light-duty passenger vehicles and does not include 16 million cars expected by 2015 to be start-stop vehicles (SSV).

Pike Research’s optimism was shared by others at Infocast’s 10X Advanced Battery meeting which I attended to hear presentations from Pike Research, other research groups, battery makers, auto makers, and venture capitalists.

John Gartner forecasts that automotive lithium battery revenue will grow from $2 billion in 2011 to $14.6 billion in 2017. Because battery-electric vehicles (BEV) use much larger packs than hybrid-electric (HEV), 2017 BEV revenue will be $10.8 billion, PHEV will be 3.2 billion, and HEV will be 0.6 billion.

Safety research continues. Much progress has been made in preventing lithium thermal runaways. In a crash test, the lithium battery in a Chevrolet Volt caught fire days after the crash. There have been no reported fires of actual owners including those involved in crashes. In contrast, there were over 180,000 fires in U.S. gasoline cars last year. The electric car alarmists continue to use their iPhones, Droids, iPads, and notebook computers that all use lithium batteries and do get dropped. We are not seeing a big demand for gasoline-powered smart phones.

Automotive lithium packs, including packaging, power electronics and thermal management, are forecast to drop from $752 per kilowatt hour (kWh) today to $523/kWh by 2017. At Clean Fleet Report, we speculate that automakers such as Tesla and Ford are already in that $500/kW ballpark today. Some are likely to reach $300/kW by 2020. Improved cell chemistry, hybrid car demand, and manufacturing volume will drive prices lower.

Will lithium batteries be a bubble like solar?

Solar cells are over 100 times cheaper than in the 1970s. We will not see such price drops for lithium, but prices will keep falling. Solar price drops in 2011 were great for homeowners and business that bought solar power, but the drops put several companies out of business. Solyndra met Darwin.

By 2017 it is possible that market share competition will lead to excess capacity and falling prices. Should that happen, packs would cost less than $500/kW. At the 10X meeting, patent attorney Matt Prater pointed out that Samsung, Panasonic, LG Chem, Toyota and Sony are leading in battery patents. The battle for market share is certain to be intense. Battery advancements for the automotive market will benefit stationary power and consumer electronics and vice versa.

Lithium is not the only game in town. Automakers continue to heavily use lead-acid batteries including improved chemistry for SSV. Many automakers, such as Toyota, continue to favor NiMH for hybrids for safety and cost reasons. Most electric cars use lithium batteries to supply the powertrain and lead-acid to support auxiliaries.

In this decade, lithium-ion is likely to dominate in electric and hybrid cars. The next decade is up in the air. Battery and automakers are actively researching solid-state batteries, magnesium, lithium-air and other metal air. General Motors is a stockholder in SAKTI3, which is making significant progress with solid-state technology that will lower battery size and cost. Toyota is actively researching magnesium, which is 24x cheaper than lithium and has better volumetric capacity. IBM and others are actively researching metal air batteries that could improve storage 10X with lithium-air. David Biello of Scientific Americandiscusses alternatives such as flow batteries at Txchnologist.

The Top 10 Electric Cars all use lithium-ion batteries to free drivers from stopping at gas stations. As electric and hybrid car competition intensifies, Nissan, GM, Toyota, and Ford are in a race to sell the most vehicles with lithium batteries. In 2013, at least one of these automakers will sell over 100,000 cars with lithium battery packs. In the future, advancements in cell chemistry and manufacturing volume will allow more hybrids to achieve over 40 miles per gallon, extend the range of electric cars, and make these advanced cars affordable for millions.

Next week, I will be at the Cleantech Summit, where the future of energy will be discussed by Dr. Daniel Yergin, Dr. Daniel Kammen, Dr. Arun Majumdar and a number of other industry experts. Stay tuned.

As much as I would love to believe that this awesome technology is going to take off, I just don't see oil dependance going anywhere but up. We have had this technology for years, and currently many other countries are using the electric hybrid technology at a much more affordable rate than the electric cars in our country. If we want this application to be effective, we have to make this technology affordable to all americans, especially the lower income levels. I know that for me (an average middle class small biz owner), I am not going to spend 40k on a hybrid car when I can keep driving the old Ford I bought for $1500 in like new condition.